Questions and Answers

My husband passed away in August. We had booked a trip using his life miles Malaysia to UK. One way was 60k points using his account. Return was with my points.
When I advised them they told me that it is their policy to close his account and forfeit his points including no offer to return the tax paid. Of course they kindly offered to accelerate the return of my miles used for one trip!
I argued with them to no avail. That was their ‘terms and conditions’ that we had accepted; always replying with much gushing sympathies.
I had to unravel many trips with Qatar, MAS and SingaporeAir. All points and trips were refunded – no questions. Even the tickets with non refundable conditions and including prepaid hotels.
His passing was sad and sudden at 58 – a fit and handsome man with the best nature.

Seems there is nothing that can be done even when I pointed out to them that they were robbing a dead person!
All very sad.
Do be aware not to hold points with life miles …just in case. This is a very gouging and unsympathetic company.

Your help and comments will be appreciated.

Linda, I’m so sorry for your loss. Having to deal with tickets and travel plans at a time like this must be frustrating. As you are discovering, what happens to mileage balances of the deceased is not straightforward at all. Tiffany did an article a while back [URL]https://onemileatatime.com/airline-miles-death/[/URL] which although it does not specifically mention Avianca, does provide some general guidelines in dealing with these situations.

[QUOTE=”Linda LSY, post: 66427, member: 5964″]My husband passed away in August. We had booked a trip using his life miles Malaysia to UK. One way was 60k points using his account. Return was with my points.
When I advised them they told me that it is their policy to close his account and forfeit his points including no offer to return the tax paid. Of course they kindly offered to accelerate the return of my miles used for one trip!
I argued with them to no avail. That was their ‘terms and conditions’ that we had accepted; always replying with much gushing sympathies.
I had to unravel many trips with Qatar, MAS and SingaporeAir. All points and trips were refunded – no questions. Even the tickets with non refundable conditions and including prepaid hotels.
His passing was sad and sudden at 58 – a fit and handsome man with the best nature.

Seems there is nothing that can be done even when I pointed out to them that they were robbing a dead person!
All very sad.
Do be aware not to hold points with life miles …just in case. This is a very gouging and unsympathetic company.

Your help and comments will be appreciated.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=”Gaurav, post: 66431, member: 79″]Linda, I’m so sorry for your loss. Having to deal with tickets and travel plans at a time like this must be frustrating. As you are discovering, what happens to mileage balances of the deceased is not straightforward at all. Tiffany did an article a while back [URL]https://onemileatatime.com/airline-miles-death/[/URL] which although it does not specifically mention Avianca, does provide some general guidelines in dealing with these situations.[/QUOTE]

Thanks for your reply Gaurav

I have all the log in detail but thought I would do the right thing and inform then but it backfired.

MAS just transferred all his points to me.

QATAR is looking into it too.

Singapore air refunded all the ticket cost for the whole family even-though they were non refundable tickets.

The annoying part is we paid for all the points at life miles so it costs a lot more. They didn’t even offer to refund the tax.